CROSS-BORDER TERRORISM AND PAKISTAN'S INTERNAL SECURITY AFTER THE U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN: A POST-2021 ANALYSIS
Keywords:
Cross-Border Terrorism; Pakistan & Afghanistan; TTP & ISKP; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa & Balochistan; Regional Security Complex TheoryAbstract
The Taliban seizure of Kabul (up until 15 August 2021) and the U.S. military withdrawal (completed 30 August 2021) changed, but did not alone cause a re-emerging terrorism menace in Pakistan. This paper describes how post-2021 internal-security deterioration was an interaction between foreign enabling conditions in Afghanistan and the domestic uneven capacity to provide state services in Pakistan. It employs a qualitative explanatory case-study design of a systematic documentary analysis, description of pre/post-2021 trends and comparative studies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan based on design and limited causal-process tracing of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The corpus is empirical in that there are 45 verifiable documents. They are broken down into a pre-withdrawal (1 January 2018-14 August 2021), transitional (15-31 August 2021) and post-withdrawal (1 September 2021-30 June 2026). As evidenced, TTP reunification existed prior to the Taliban takeover and the subsequent cauterianification in the form of the Afghan political transformation offered more opportunities in terms of safety of sanctuary, mobility, leadership and consolidation. This opportunity structure was further enhanced by the November 2022 ceasefire breakdown and the institutional weaknesses in the country. KP demonstrates the most intense Afghanistan-TTP connection; Balochistan is a differently structured and high-exposure scenario with overlapping and often cause-specific separatist, jihadist, criminal and borderland identities and a high number of cross-border claims. External-opportunity reduction and enhancements in domestic institutions is the way to have long-lasting counterterrorism.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
